China makes math history with its first Fields Medal winners

Two Chinese mathematicians, Hong Wang and Yu Deng, won the Fields Medal—the math world’s top prize—alongside John Pardon (US) and Jacob Tsimerman (Canada), marking China’s first Fields Medalists and Wang as only the third woman to win; each laureate receives CAD 15,000. Wang helped solve the 1917 Kakeya pencil-rotation problem in 3D, while Deng addressed Hilbert’s Sixth Problem by linking microscopic particle behavior to macroscopic gas dynamics. Wang studied at Peking University, MIT, and in France, and now teaches at NYU and IHES, while Deng is a professor at the University of Chicago; the prize is awarded every four years to under-40 mathematicians. Macron congratulated Wang.